It is very difficult to imagine that you can actually get rid of a dictatorship that has been there for 60 years only in 18 days.
BASSEM YOUSSEFPeople say, ‘Are you afraid? Are you scared for your life?’ and I tell them: If I choose today to tone it down, if I choose today to shut up, tomorrow me, you, and all of us will be forced to.
More Bassem Youssef Quotes
-
-
Satire has its limits. It is really up to the people to make the change. The satirist’s role ends at the screen.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
I always tell people that a revolution is not an event, it’s a process. It is a struggle. And it doesn’t usually go smoothly.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
What I saw day-to-day is like people who are actually asking for freedom, calling for freedom – protesting, singing, chanting, calling for the removal of the regime – plain and simple.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
By the way, I follow the American elections, and I have never seen someone who is that offensive. I have seen people who are stupid. But stupid and offensive, that’s new.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
People went out there and they wrote articles and went on television shows saying that I am an operative that the CIA who used Jon Stewart to recruit me. So Jon Stewart, who actually – a guy from America was used by the CIA in order to recruit me for the CIA and be.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
I was accused of insulting the president, insulting Islam, insulting – spreading rumors, disturbing the peace.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
People would believe propagate, spread rumors or conspiracy theories in order to protect their own system of denial.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
Everybody grows up with comedy. I mean, Egyptian comedy has a very, very old tradition. Our theater and our movies are just, like, amazing.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
There are people who believe in Egypt that I – I’m actually – I’m getting paid by external powers and external intelligence entities in order to use satire to bring down the government.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
Donald Trump is not stupid. He knows exactly what he’s saying. And he’s just saying out there – I mean, forget about Muslims. He said I could go down on Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot someone in the face and people – and the voters will have no problem with it.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
The only the way that you can live and function without seeing the facts in front of you is to put yourself in a constant state of denial.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
The worst thing ever that you have to explain your joke because I was very disappointed trying to explain why the joke is funny for the interrogator.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
People say, ‘Are you afraid? Are you scared for your life?’ and I tell them: If I choose today to tone it down, if I choose today to shut up, tomorrow me, you, and all of us will be forced to.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
Egypt is kind of like the Hollywood of the Middle East. I mean, we had cinema maybe decades before the other Arab countries ever got independence.
BASSEM YOUSSEF -
I think by the time I left Egypt, there was about like 400 accusations against me in the drawer of the public persecutor office. It’s a way for them to exhaust you, to push you, to put you under pressure, to distract you.
BASSEM YOUSSEF